Archive for 'language'
How To Blog In Russian: вести Живой Журнал или блоговать? Posted by josefina on Jun 2, 2008
The Russian blog community is a fascinating world of general discussions, private reflections and random efforts to earn an extra ruble or two – in short, just like in all other blog communities around the world. In Russia there’s still some ambivalence about what to exactly call this ‘action’ (once again we’re back at the…
Who Owns The Rights To Lenin’s Face? Posted by josefina on May 31, 2008
After his death in 1924, the face of Владимир Ильич Ленин was used for mainly religious purposes, as he became known as a sort of ‘icon’ for the Soviet Union. After the death of the Soviet Union, the face of Lenin, and even more so his profile, has been used for a wide array of…
Brief Thoughts On The Russian Verb Posted by josefina on May 28, 2008
The most confusing part of Russian language – putting aside, of course, those six cases for the moment – is the verb. The Russian verb is both confusing and difficult to master for foreigners, especially for foreigners with a non-Slavic native language. The reason why this is so is because of a little thing called…
Phraseology In The News: Колено [The Knee] Posted by josefina on May 23, 2008
«Им мир по колено – выросло первое поколение стабильности» [They couldn’t care less (about the world) – the first generation of stability has grown up]. One of the first things I noticed when I arrived in Russia back in 2004 was how much the young teenage generation differed from their parents and even from…
Падежи: everything you ever wanted to know about Russian cases! Posted by josefina on May 14, 2008
Today I woke up to find hundreds of posters taped up on the walls inside of the dormitory building where I live. Though the service adverticed by Tomas Life Coaching is clearly not directed at me (it is actually rather unclear as to whom it is directed, but I guess we shouldn’t get further…
Only in Russian: Хлопотать! Posted by josefina on Apr 21, 2008
Once in a while you come across a new word in a foreign language that just grabs a hold of you hard and refuses to let go for a long period of time. This word can be as plain as vanilla ice-cream, but it is more often than not an exotic word, and frequently also…
Random Russian Reports Posted by josefina on Apr 17, 2008
For some reason whenever I’m searching for some interesting piece of news from the Великая Родина [Great Motherland] to comment on here, there’s nothing even remotely interesting to be found on any of the many abundant Russian news sites. I’m not just trying to find a news story to comment on in a purely ‘journalistic’…